John Gordon Ross

A Man for All Reasons

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Language Stuff

Almost everyone uses language, so inevitably almost everyone thinks they are an expert in it. I don’t consider myself an expert, though most of my work requires at least language competence and sometimes actual skill, but I do follow the blogs featured on this feeds page.

(If you are wondering where the translation-related feeds have all gone, I have put them on their own page.)

Most of the blogs represented here are in English, most of the time, but don’t be surprised to find other languages used. Go with the flow – I occasionally find myself pleasantly surprised at how much I can grasp in languages I have never seen before.

Language On the Net

Language Log » Easy going crazy

Friday 16 February 19:38:35 UTC 2018

Today Josh Tenenbaum gave a talk here in the Interdisciplinary Mind and Brain Seminar Series, under the title "On what you can’t learn from (merely) all the data in the world, and what else is needed". One of his themes was that current RNN systems lack common sense, and so in honor of that point, here's another episode in our … [Link]

languagehat.com » A New Source for Shakespeare.

Friday 16 February 15:19:57 UTC 2018

Michael Blanding reports for the New York Times on an exciting discovery for Shakespeareans: For years scholars have debated what inspired William Shakespeare’s writings. Now, with the help of software typically used by professors to nab cheating students, two writers have discovered an unpublished manuscript they believe the Bard of Avon consulted to write “King Lear,” “Macbeth,” “Richard III,” “Henry … [Link]

Omniglot blog » Rememberers

Friday 16 February 11:26:50 UTC 2018

I discovered a new word today – rememberer – it means one who remembers, and in sociolinguitics it has a more specific meaning: “One who remembers several words and phrases from a moribund language, but never became fluent in it.” I came across this word on Wikipedia in an article about the Southern Pomo language, which states that “In 2012 … [Link]

Urban Word of the Day » like whoring

Friday 16 February 8:00:00 UTC 2018

It is when you are begging for like or trying to trick people into likeing your comment to get attention.These comments often end with something akin to "Like if you agree"Its called like whoring because your whoring out your dignity for likes Like whoring comment on youtube: "Omg, that was sooooo funny, like if you agree 😆😆&#x1f~ [Link]

Language Log » Ottoman Hebrew scroll

Friday 16 February 1:09:31 UTC 2018

Or so it would seem, but the people who have looked at this scroll so far cannot make much sense of what's written on it. Michael Carasik, who passed this on to me says, "The Arabic label above the picture may actually be readable, unlike the Hebrew, which is only sporadically so." Can anybody read it? [Thanks to Barry Schwartz] … [Link]

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